


and a brand new pair of shoes

by stilesinwonderland (itsabravenewworld)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Baseball Player Derek, College Student Stiles, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-11
Updated: 2014-11-11
Packaged: 2018-02-24 22:18:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2598500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsabravenewworld/pseuds/stilesinwonderland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“So dad’s happy with me not moving around the country; I’m happy not leaving you guys behind. Their campus is hella nice, and they have an awesome baseball team. All’s well that ends well, right?”</p><p>or the one where stiles is a baseball player in college</p>
            </blockquote>





	and a brand new pair of shoes

**Author's Note:**

> On tumblr I started a fic writing event where I answer 16 prompts before Halloween and even though I totally failed at it, I'm slowly answering my prompts. Come check them out (reblog them too cause yeah), my url is obriensnipples!
> 
> The title is from “Centerfield” by John Fogerty
> 
> Enjoy!!

Applying to colleges is hard due to Stiles’s goal of becoming an engineer, because finding schools that have what Stiles wants that are close and that  _aren’t_ MIT are rare. And the fact that Scott wasn’t going towards MIT in his searches depressed him, and made him look less forward to the future. But whatever, they will keep in touch because they aren’t temporary friends, they are “get tattoos when really drunk and regret them the morning after but joke about them when they’re forty” friends. Those are the best ones.

 

But college turned out just like Stiles expected it to: a couple thousand dollars too much, much too pricey, and a hell of a lot too expensive. Just a minor setback. A bump in the road, really, a “the road is closed so go around” detour. So instead of going to MIT with Lydia, his next option was UCLA, home of the Bruins. It’s only an hour away from  Beacon Hills, which is practical if one of the others gets kidnapped in the middle of the nights, or if something happens to his dad.

Stiles has a long talk with his father about college choices. He’s all about letting Stiles making choices and offers no actual help except that he will always help him if the money is an issue. All of the signs are pointing to UCLA now instead of MIT, so Stiles tears up the MIT acceptance letter and schedules a visit.

The campus is green, huge, and the dorms all have mega size mini-fridges (which Stiles hadn’t thought was possible, but there they were, in all their silver glory.) The library has two floors and doesn’t have ancient computers like Derek’s. The senior he’s rooming with for the night has friends over and they even let him drink with them. Stiles falls in love a little bit, and he goes home still riding from the highs.

Stiles breaks the news that he’s changing school plans when he finally resolves that he’s going there, which is approximately one day later.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Stiles tells Scott, crunching barbeque chips between his fingers and munching them down. “It’s not the end of the world.” There’s a marathon of  _Beavis and Butthead_ on so they’ve been lounging around for a couple hours eating the entirety of his fridge.

“MIT was your  _dream_ though, dude,” Scott looks more wounded than Stiles really feels about the whole situation, which is only stressing him out more. “ _Lydia’s_ going there.”

“My dream was also to become an astronaut, but now I’m older and realize that my tiny body would float away too easily on the moon.” Scott rolls his eyes at him and still looks sad for him. “Dreams can change, Scott. UCLA isn’t bad at all, it’s got a great engineering program, which is all I need.”

Scott seems to consider this. “It’s closer, too.”

“I took that into consideration, yes. I gave up on Lydia Junior year after the kanima, and you knew that, so don’t even front. It’s fine though,” he interrupts Scott’s sympathetic look. “I’ve had other shit to deal with, right? Supernatural beings and whatnot.” Scott nods.

“So dad’s happy with me not moving around the country; I’m happy not leaving you guys behind. Their campus is hella nice, and they have an awesome baseball team. All’s well that ends well, right?”

“Sure, I guess.” Scott throws his feet up on the table and Stiles kicks them off. “Now we have to see if I get accepted too.”

“You will. They can’t reject the boy wonder.”

The letter comes a week later, and Scott has Stiles read it to him while he covers his eyes, peeking through the slits in the fingers. He makes it in, and they celebrate the beginning of the rest of their scholarly lives by drinking three two-liter bottles of Mountain Dew in one sitting, surrounded by bite-size snickers wrappers.

“We are  _so_ ready for college,” Stiles tells him, still on his sugar high for the second consecutive hour. He’s starting to see doubles of the roads in Mario Kart racing around the track and he falls off for the third time.

Scott’s not nearly as jumpy as him; the werewolf genes don’t allow any kind of fun, Stiles reserves, as Scott beats him for the third time. “Hell yeah man,” he says, gives him a goofy grin that Stiles shares easily even though he’s a sore loser, because he’s totally psyched. “Hell yeah.”

-

Derek helps them pack up their cars when the school year begins. Scott’s mom is crying too hard to really be of any help, and Scott is trying to console her and murmuring that “they’re only going to be an hour away, mom” so that leaves Stiles, his dad, and Derek to load Stiles’s trunk full of all of their junk.

“This is taking forever,” Stiles complains, and wipes the sweat off of his forehead.

“It’s your fault you want to bring all of your game consoles,” his dad tells him, and Stiles sticks his tongue out because he’s too hot for a proper comeback. It’s at least seventy degrees hotter than the temperature of the sun outside.

“It’s a good thing Stiles only really has two t-shirts to his name,” Derek says quietly, and that earns him a laugh from his dad.

“Hey!” Derek elbows him in the side, and his lips are twitching up. “Very funny, asshole.”

Derek looks just as dead as he does, and having extra werewolf heat must be a thousand times worse for them. Derek wears the sweaty-as-hell look  _really_ well, though, so Stiles is letting him carry most of the weight, because really he can’t stand looking stupid and gross while Derek’s flawless skin is glistening in the sun and making him  _stare_. Wait, what.

He shakes his head frantically, and throws a box with his glove and bat into the back seat. Derek hits the top of his baseball hat on Stiles’s head, and Stiles punches him in the gut, earning a huff of laughter.

“Now that that’s done,” Stiles’s dad shouts from the porch, and Stiles looks then glares at him, because he knows that he hadn’t been helping on  _purpose_. His dad is a cheater. “Would you all like to stay for dinner before you two take off?”

Scott’s mom nods, sniffling. Stiles walks towards the house.

“Oh, you’re welcome to stay, Derek,” Stiles’s dad calls to a retreating Derek.

“Yeah, where are you going?” Stiles asks him, and Derek looks at him, eyes wide, and with his car keys already in hand, points to the Camaro.

“I figured that it was a family affair.”

Stiles feels a tug in his gut at that, because Derek doesn’t get his family members leaving for college. Derek’s little sister, Penelope, would have been going away the year after them. He swallows and jogs over, throws an arm around his wide shoulders.

“Don’t be a dumbshit, you helped pack the car, you deserve some food.” He ushers Derek to the porch, and tries not to think about the shoulder muscles moving under his fingers and his heat sluggish heart speeding up in his chest.

-

Isaac, Erica, Lydia, Boyd, and even  _Jackson_  (the big softie) all come to say goodbye to them, and after Stiles promises to call Isaac at least once a week and delivers his round of hugs, they’re seated in the Jeep, ready to go. The A/C is huffing air futilely, combating the raging heat, and Stiles has the window rolled down, his hat put on backwards and sticking to his forehead.

“Don’t be strangers now,” he calls to the group in the grass, and they all wave, Lydia blowing a kiss that he catches and puts in his pocket in an exaggerated gesture.  

Derek’s standing behind all of the group, Stiles notices, his hands in the pockets of his jacket. It’s a wonder to Stiles how he’s not dying of heatstroke at the moment, but Stiles has never understood fashion anyways. He points to Derek, and because he doesn’t know what else to say, orders, “And  _you_ stay out of trouble.”

Derek doesn’t quite smile, but his face looks less heavy at that. He says, “Get out of here, Stiles,” with a pressing tilt of his head and Stiles laughs. Something blocks his throat all of a sudden, the  _“I’ll miss you”_ getting stuck on the way out. It’s harder to drive away then he would have thought, but he backs out and almost hits his garbage can on the way down the driveway. He fumbles with the wheel, and waves again in an act of composure as Scott laughs at him from the passenger side.

The odd feeling doesn’t clear up until his friends are out of sight and the open road is ahead of him, Scott’s music and screechy voice finally pulling his attention away from Beacon Hills as he turns onto the highway.

-

It takes them five hours to get there, twenty minutes to get their room settled (with large amounts of schmoozing and lying from Stiles to get them roomed together) then they begin unpacking— which consists of throwing their clothes in the one tiny closet they have and hooking the Xbox and Playstation up. The room they have is one of the smaller ones available, but they would make do just fine, and Stiles’s thirty-plus inch TV just barely fit in the space for it the way the furniture is set.

When they’re done, Stiles throws himself on the little-bit too hard bed. He folds his arms behind his head and sighs happily, mutes his phone and listens to the yelling coming through the paper-thin walls.

-

Stiles can hear Scott telling him for the millionth-and a half time that he should go to sleep and put the coffee away, but he’s waited too long to write his paper and it’s due in less than two hours. He’s only got one page left, and he is on a roll of bullshit words when his phone rings on the desk. Scott makes a noise like he’s screaming into his pillow even as Stiles picks it up, presses “accept.”

“Wha-huh?” Stiles answers into the receiver, rubs at his eyes irritatingly; now that he’s stopped paying attention to the page in front of him, the words are blurred and he squints.

“What do you know about Owl spirits?”

“Derek?”  

Scott’s sitting up already, his eyes impossibly alert for this time of night— _morning_ he notes when he sees the time— especially when he’d just been taking three minute naps before being woken up by Stiles furiously typing. “What’s wrong?”

“What do you need to know?” Stiles asks him.

“Why it would all of a sudden attack us,” Derek says impatiently, and Stiles scoffs, already scrolling through the bestiary. This is the fourth time something has happened to the pack in the couple of months they’ve been away, which Stiles considers a record. A low record. He laughs to himself.

He’s not even really reading the pdf file on his computer when he says, “maybe it didn’t like your attitude.”

“Stiles,” Derek growls.

Stiles is really too tired to focus on the page in front of him, so he tries to answer with what he can think of off of the top of his head. Apparently, it’s not much, because his mind is still focused on the effects of the second World War, but he shakes his head to try and clear it. “Well, I know owl spirits are wise and set in tradition. Did you guys go snooping around in a different area?”

“No, why—”

“I didn’t say that was definitely it,” Stiles cuts him off irritably, rubbing at his eyes. “Did you talk to him? Say anything to offend him?”

“It wasn’t a him,” Derek says, and Stiles nods.

“Sorry, I always have the owl from Avatar stuck in my head when I think of owl spirits.” He makes a mental note to re-marathon that series when Derek sighs long-sufferingly. Suddenly, Stiles has a thought, asks “did anyone steal anything from the land?” tapping his fingers on the wood of his desk, excitedly to the point where his fingertips hurt.

“Not us, but some teenagers from the high school took a quartz stone.” It seems to connect with Derek all in a couple of seconds, and Stiles hears, “Oh.”

Stiles hums. “The spirit probably assumes you’re in charge of keeping the community in shape. Someone does something, the higher-ups get punished and not the criminals. Hey, I like that.” He laughs. “So return the stone and apologize and give the kids a punishment. Problem solved.”

Derek grunts over the line and Stiles smiles at how grumpy he sounds. “You both settled in okay?” And Stiles can’t see him, but he can imagine that Derek’s expression is pinched awkwardly.

“Just fine,” he tells him, and Scott, figuring that he isn’t needed, has stumbled back to his bed and is texting Allison even though she’s probably asleep. “The most exciting thing that happens is getting a full night’s sleep, really.”

“Oh,” Derek says sharply, as if realizing the time. “You must need sleep. I’ll uh— um.”

“Text me?” Stiles finishes, heart pounding.

“Yeah. Thanks.” It catches him off guard, so he stares at his laptop blankly for a few seconds. “Stiles?”

“Yeah? Oh, any time. Bye.” Stiles hangs up and looks at his half-finished paper. He ends up turning it in late, but he feels like he should get extra credit for completing it all all with his mind so rattled.

-

“So are you going to try out for the team?”

“The lacrosse team?” Stiles wrinkles his nose in mirth. “God no, I’m horrible at it and you know it.” The running alone had nearly put him into cardiac arrest every practice, but he wasn’t coordinated to keep the ball in the net half the time in high school. The memory of having to clean mud-filled cleats makes him shudder. It hadn’t been all that bad, though, the conditioning had kept him in shape, especially with how much he, as a teen, ate.

Scott throws a rolled up pair of socks at him. Stiles flails and almost falls off of the bed, gives him the finger. “You know I meant baseball, asshole.”

Stiles sighs. “I can’t believe our high school never had a  _baseball_ team.” There was a community team, and little league—he was heavily involved with the latter— but the prices involved were astronomical, and Stiles wouldn’t allow his father to pay for anything that expensive, especially after his mom’s death. So instead, he’d gone to batting cages, considering offers from local recruiters trying to get him on their teams when they saw that his hitting was actually very good, but never actually joining a team.  Until college, he’d told himself, rubbing his gloved hands together, when he’d gotten a steady job.

Now though, he wasn’t sure if he was even any good anymore.

“Yeah, Beacon Hills sucks,” Scott says, and he has that look that says he knows that Stiles is deflecting, but isn’t letting it go. “So are you going to?”

“Tryouts are in a few months,” Stiles says, trying to avoid it.

Scott isn’t having it though, and stares him down. “You need to get practice in. I’ll help.”

“Really?” Stiles asks him, hope rising in his chest. Scott is looking at him with unwavering confidence like he always does; Scott never doubts him at all. He eyes his bat in the corner wistfully, and Scott follows his gaze, smiling and going to pick up the wooden bat, swinging it incorrectly, too high.

“We can throw the ball around tomorrow.”

-

Scott’s managed to convince enough people to join them to create a scrimmage game, including three members of the baseball team, named Jeff, Carter, and a recent friend they’ve made, Herb. They all put Stiles on the pitchers mound, and he rubs the dirt on his hands nervously. It’s slightly chilly, because the weather has just recently subsided from warmer to cooler temperatures, and he hopes the hoodie doesn’t restrict his arms too much.

“Come on, Stiles! You won’t strike me out anyways!” Carter calls, hands around his mouth, from home plate. He’s a classic California native, with seemingly permanent-tanned skin and teeth that look bleach white.  He grins easily, and Stiles smirks, accepting the challenge. He winds up, breathes in deeply, and pitches so hard that he loses his balance when he lifts his back leg up, swinging his arms up. Carter swings, but he misses— his face explodes into an expression of shock. “Ho-holy shit,” he laughs boisterously, holding the bat behind his back. “Stilinski’s got a cannon!”

Stiles pitches again (a strike) with a smile on his face, and his arms feel warm enough that he takes his hoodie off, tossing it to the side of the field that’s covered with grass. Scott is laughing excitedly, and Stiles shoots him a grin. Scott gives him a thumbs-up.

“We need this kid on the team,” Herb, from center field, comments to Jeff, who nods seriously.

Carter shakes his head. “I don’t know if he’s  _that_ good yet,” he says, readying himself again, this time directly challenging him. This time when Stiles chucks the ball, the bat cracks with a loud noise and the ball flies straight at Stiles’s face in half a second. Stiles’s mitt comes up as a shield for his face, and he’s still getting over the shock when everyone cheers, because he’s caught the ball, two inches from his face. His heart thuds painfully in his chest, because he still doesn’t do that good with shock, with everything he’s been through, but everyone’s hooting brings him back to reality, and he smiles sheepishly.

"I expect to see you at tryouts this week, Stilinski!"

Stiles laughs and throws the ball at his head.

-

"I can’t believe I made it," Stiles gushes for the thousandth time since they’ve come back. Scott grins at him, humoring (and if he wants to complain about him repeating things, Stiles can feel free to mention Allison any time he wants, free of charge).

“I know,” Scott says. “Did you call your dad?”

“No, no I forgot,” Stiles says, quickly grabbing his cell phone and dialing. He rants to his dad for a half hour and reassures him that he’s fine and adjusting well to college, but when he hangs up, he’s got a huge smile on his face despite the fact that he misses his dad.

“Hey, c’mere,” Scott mutters and forces Stiles to stand up. “Put your jersey on,” he orders. Stiles does, confused, until Scott pulls out his phone and tells him to pose.

He takes a picture of Stiles with both thumbs up and grinning like an idiot, and then posts it on facebook. Stiles rolls his eyes and tosses his phone on the bed.

Stiles does some reading for his classes (which isn’t quite successful because he’s too wired up to think straight) while Scott naps, and he picks up his phone when it beeps in the quiet of the room.

_4:08 p.m.: Congratulations_

4:09 p.m.: You saw? I didn’t know you had a facebook!

_4:13 p.m.: I don’t. Boyd showed me._

Stiles can’t help but laugh at the thought of Derek tearing Boyd’s phone out of his hands to look at facebook because he is stubborn enough to refuse to get one himself. His heart clenches when he remembers that he hasn’t seen all of them in months and he thinks he might actually miss them.

4:15 p.m.: Well thanks!

Derek doesn’t answer, which is kind of expected, so Stiles goes back to his reading.

-

Keeping his phone on him at all times is a precaution born out of paranoia. He keeps it during practices and games, and makes sure the ringer is all the way up so he doesn’t miss it if someone needs him. The rest of the team gives him a look during an away game when his phone blares loudly from his pocket. He apologizes to his coach but answers it anyways when he sees that it’s Derek.

“Derek,” he breathes. “What’s up? Is it an emergency?”

“I call you when there’s not an emergency,” Derek says. Stiles laughs at the affront in his tone.

“I know,” Stiles replies, which is a lie. Because Derek never  _does_  call unless it’s an emergency, which makes Stiles’s stomach twist in displeasure, now that he’s thinking about it. Johnson is up to bat and he’s supposed to be on deck, so he asks again, “What you need?”

“It’s the owl spirit again,” Derek tells him. “She turned Erica into a baby.”

He can hear crying in the background and wonders how Derek ever got anywhere without him. “Okay, just take care of her for right now, but I’m at a game. Call me in two hours and I’ll help you get it figured out.”

He’s taking his hat off to slip his helmet on when Derek says, “Oh, Sure.” He doesn’t put the helmet on yet because he can’t use the phone with it on, and Derek’s tone concerns him. His coach tells him to get his ass going, and he puts a finger up with a pleading expression.

“Is that okay?”

“No, of course,” Derek says, too quickly. “I’ll call you later. Have a good game, Stiles.” And then he hangs up. Stiles grunts in frustration and tosses his phone onto the bench, running out just as Johnson strikes out and he’s called up.

He strikes out too, and they end up losing three to one.

Derek doesn’t call back.

Stiles tries calling Derek back again before getting into his car to drive home, but he doesn’t get an answer.

Later, when he gets back to his dorm, exhausted and sweaty, he digs his phone out and waves to Scott, who is also on the phone. “Who are you talking to?” he stage-whispers. Scott is bent over Stiles’s laptop and Stiles glares at him.  

“Derek,” Scott says, frowning, like it explains everything. Stiles lowers his phone.

“Oh.” He throws his phone onto his bed. “I was just going to call him.”

“It was pretty important apparently,” Scott says, still glaring intently at Stiles’s laptop. “Stiles, this is the third porn folder I’ve gone into. Where do you keep the bestiary?”

“ _Jesus,”_ Stiles exclaims, mortified, and makes grabby hands for the phone. “Just let me do it.”

“He was just joking about the porn,” Stiles says into the phone when Scott hands it over, to try and save himself the mortification. Derek makes a disbelieving noise over the line. “So it couldn’t wait for me to get home, huh?”

Stiles can’t help sounding bitter, and Derek huffs in reply. He starts to think that Derek is purposely not talking to him for some reason, but then Derek says, “I didn’t know how long it would take.” And yeah. Stiles knows he’s been a bit absent (thinking about it now is like a punch to the gut) but Derek is replacing him; he knows it.

“I told you two hours.” Stiles clicks through to the part he has bookmarked for Derek’s owl friend. “I literally gave you an exact time frame.”

Derek doesn’t answer, but Stiles can hear him breathing over the line, heavy. “So what exactly do we do?” he asks instead. Stiles feels a rush of irritation.

“Well  _I’m_  not going to be doing much,” he snaps. “Just try talking to her again, she seems like a decent owl since you convinced her to fix what she did the first time, and you probably haven’t pissed her off that much. But if she doesn’t want to talk, you might have to get rid of her…”  He rattles off ingredients for an anti-summoning spell that will kick the owl spirit to at least another state.

“Okay,” Derek says when he’s done scribbling audibly on a piece of paper.

When it doesn’t seem like Derek’s going to say more, Stiles rubs at his temple and says, “Well you’re welcome.”

“Thank you,” Derek says, and Stiles hangs up on him this time.

-

Things are okay. The team makes it all the way to regionals, with only that one game lost and their last qualifying game is against the team that had beaten them. It’s hard keeping up with homework, but then again, he’s always had troubles with that anyways.

Derek still doesn’t make it a point to contact him, and Stiles tries not to feel too beaten up about it.

They drive back to Beacon Hills for Spring Break, and Scott needs to spend time with his mom but Stiles’s dad is at work, so he’s left with nothing to do for a day. So Stiles gets into his car and drives to the loft. The Camaro is sitting in the driveway, and Stiles knocks anxiously on the door.

Isaac answers the door, looking relieved to see him.

“Hey,” Stiles says.

Isaac grins back. He moves back to let Stiles in. Stiles immediately heads towards the kitchen-living room combo and stands behind the couch.  “Hey dude. You didn’t need to knock.”

“Yes he did,” Derek says, up from the top of the stairwell. Stiles slips off his sunglasses, and takes him in. Dressed in casual wear, Derek looks soft and weirdly tired with droopy eyes like he’d just woken up from a nap.

Stiles chuckles. “Figured I’d be polite.”

Derek looks him up and down closely. “What are you doing here?”

“Back for break,” Stiles says, trying not to crack under the pressure of Derek’s gaze. Derek purposefully looks away and goes down the rest of the stairs. He pads over to the fridge and pours himself and Stiles a glass of milk, sliding it across the counter. “Thanks.”

See, the thing is, Stiles didn’t really expect a homecoming parade or anything. But he keeps thinking that he’d been expecting more than this. It’s quiet, calm silence and small talk. Though that’s mostly between him and Isaac, with Derek frowning in the sidelines. “How are things?”

“Good. Stressful,” Isaac answers honestly. “How about you?”

Stiles recants his tales about going to regionals and that the college parties are actually kind of lame. Isaac listens intently, and Stiles feels bad because he doesn’t have the chance to go away like he’d wanted to.

“Good for you,” Isaac says genuinely. Derek nods solemnly in his agreement. Isaac looks down at his phone, and then gets up. “I’ve gotta get going, but I’ll see you later Stiles.”

“Bye dude,” Stiles gives him a punch on the arm and then he’s gone.

Stiles sips awkwardly from his milk. “You haven’t texted in a while.” He tries to say this in the least accusing way he can, but Derek still looks up on his haunches.

“I’ve been busy.”

Stiles wants to close his eyes and retract into his own body. “Busy. So you didn’t have anything supernatural threatening to kill you lately?”

“We handled it.”

And it sounds like he should have finished that off with the words “without you.” Stiles wants to snark back at him and defend himself, to make a barbed comment that would make Derek feel bad.

“That’s good,” he says instead. He leaves before Isaac gets back from the store, because all Derek does is give him one-word answers. He thinks that perhaps Derek wanted it that way in the first place, so when Scott asks him to attend a pack meeting later that night, he declines.

They go back without Stiles seeing Derek again.

-

As Stiles lay on his bed after a long lecture, his phone buzzes with a text.

_12:47 p.m.: Please talk to Derek he’s more miserable than he was before_

Stiles grunts in frustration.

12:50 p.m.: If Derek wanted to talk to me so badly, he would have done it

_12:51 p.m.: You’re both so stupid_

12:52 p.m.: I resent that comment

Isaac doesn’t text him back, but does snapchat him a frowny face. Rolling his eyes, Stiles plugs his phone into the charger and takes a nap.

-

They play in their field for the championship, and it’s way too hot again. Stiles feels sweaty and his cheeks are sure to be ruddy red. It’s a humid heat, and he keeps having to wipe off his forehead underneath his hat. Scott is late, but texts him that he’s in the stands halfway through the game. Stiles waves up at the stands, and Scott actually has warrior paint on his face, making him roll his eyes.

A miracle play leaves them behind by two points in the last inning of the game, and it’s the last up to bat. The first guy gets out from the catcher snatching a foul ball out of the air, and the guy before Johnson swings out. Stiles knows if he Johnson gets out, then he’s the last chance to win the game.

But on his last pitch, Johnson’s bat miraculously makes contact at the very corner of his bat and it goes soaring into left field. He manages to get on first when it’s overthrown, and Perez slides at home. Stiles is going crazy and so is the crowd, holding up various player’s signs. Perez claps him on the shoulder when he comes in, muttering “kill ‘em, Stilinski,” and then he’s up to bat.

Home plate seems miles away and eventually, he gets there, his breathing only slightly shaky. Because no matter how at home he feels playing baseball, his anxiety always seem to get the best of him in the heat of the moment. He stamps down his nerves and slips his batting glove on.

The pitcher gets into ready position, crouched down over the plate, twisting the ball behind his back. Stiles holds a hand up and steps out of the batter’s box, kicking the dirt off of his shoe. When he steps back in, time freezes before the pitcher winds up and pitches, and Stiles swings much too early.

Strike one.

Stiles hears Scott yelling supportive words at him and Stiles shakes the strike off. The next two throws are both high and far out. Ball one, ball two. Stiles cracks his neck, face and neck heated and lifts his hand again to halt the game.

Stiles gives one look up to the stands where he knows Scott is sitting, hoping to get a smile to pump him up. Only—

_Only._

Derek is here.  _He’s here,_ angrily holding Scott’s popcorn as his best friend screams his name _._ Derek’s got the stupid school t-shirt on and he’s actually wearing a baseball cap, looking ridiculous and stupidly attractive at the same time. Stiles stares up in shock at the stands, and Derek actually gives him a hesitant head-nod when he catches his eye.

It takes him a little too long to step back in the batter’s box, but when he does, he makes eye contact directly with the pitcher and smiles. Stiles knows it’s going far when he makes contact. It’s right in the middle of the bat, resounding with a  _ding_ off of the metal, and the ball  _soars,_ over into left field— right towards the player standing right there. There’s a heart-stopping moment as the fielder sprints to catch it, just next to the wall with a jump. The ball, instead of landing right in his glove, amazingly _bounces,_ off of the tip of his mitt, and flies over the barrier.

A home run.

Stiles shouts in joy and shock, and he kind of halts in his steps between first and second base, until his coach yells at him to keep going. The other two runners come home and with Stiles’s point, they’ve officially won. Stiles still shoves his fist in the air as he rounds for home, hearing the cheers in the stands. The other team’s players are already slumped over and Stiles’s team is meeting him at home plate. The envelop him in the biggest group hug he’s ever been a part of and there’s various yelling in his ears.

He tosses his hat and lets himself be carried away.

-

Stiles agrees to meet Isaac and the rest of the pack at a diner to celebrate his victory, and zips up his dirty uniform in his bag, along with his bat and glove. He leaves the locker room and heads out to his car, still in his cleats. He stops dead, though, at the sight of Derek leaning against his car with his arms crossed. Derek looks  _ridiculous,_ with a blue and orange gaudy t-shirt that reads “UCLA Bruins” on the front in bold font. It reminds Stiles of the shirt that he’d made Derek try on, back when they were figuring out the alpha case together. That seems ages away now, and Derek fills this shirt much better than his own.

He shifts his bag on his shoulder and stops right in front of him. “Hey.”

“Hi,” Derek says. And it’s really unfair but relieving that Derek looks nervous to see him. They’re on even ground, then. “It’s been a while.”

Stiles suddenly feels very very bitter. “Has it? I texted you. And  _you_ always claimed to be busy.”

“But you were busy,” Derek defends. Stiles raises an eyebrow. “With school.”

“And yet I found time. It was probably easy to replace me wasn’t it.”

Derek uncrosses his arms, confused. “I wasn’t replacing you. I was— letting you replace me. If you wanted that. So you wouldn’t be forced into this.”

“But you would sooner call Scott than me.”

“It’s not the same for Scott as it is for you. Scott is pack—”

“And I’m not?” Stiles feels that throbbing at his temple, because he’s absolutely done with this. “I’m not pack anymore, or something?” He can’t help the slightest trace of hurt in his voice, though his stance stays rigid.

Derek’s eyes widen at this. “Of course you are,” he says, and just like that, the air leaves Stiles in a huff. “Of course you are,” he asserts, when Stiles steps back. “But it’s different for you; you don’t have any obligations keeping you in the pack.”

Stiles pauses. “You’re kidding me, right.”

Pinching his nose, Derek steps forward. “Werewolves are bound together, bound to their pack. Humans are too,” he says when Stiles goes to reply, “but not in the same way. You could leave if you wanted to.” And the way Derek’s voice sounds, Stiles thinks maybe that’s the opposite of what he wants. And well, they at least have that in common.

“Why would I want to leave?” Stiles asks. “High school was hell, and I almost died on a daily basis.” Derek’s expression goes sour. “The group argued almost all the time. But it was the best time of my life. Because while we were trying not to die, we became a family. A family of kickass werewolves, a banshee, and the lone ranger humans.”

He breathes in, continues, “And my life is  _boring_ now. Normal doesn’t suit me and being here with only Scott was just like middle school; only the two of us can be in on the loop. So I miss you guys, and your shitty conversational issues and the way we yell at each other.”

Derek seems lost for words, and his mouth moves around empty syllables. “You’re stupid,” he finally settles on.

“Exactly,” Stiles asserts with a smile. Derek’s mouth twitches up the slightest bit, and Stiles hops on his toes.

“And I’m sorry.”

“I know.” He’s actually surprised to get an apology out of Derek of all people. “You were kind of stupid too.”

Derek nods. “A little.” His lips tilt up humorously. “I won’t do that again.”

“I’m sure.” Stiles smiles back, twists on his heel. “It was a great game, wasn’t it?” he asks eventually.

Derek tilts his head down in agreement. “Congratulations.”

Stiles goes and tosses his bag in the back of his car and turns back towards Derek, hovering just behind him broodily. There’s a moment of silence, but it’s not uncomfortable anymore. Stiles  motions at his getup, searching for a way to continue the conversation, though, because he’s him, and he has to. “Did Scott let you borrow a shirt, then? I appreciate your school spirit.”

There’s an awkward moment of silence, and Derek just stares at him. “I like baseball,” he says eventually.

Raising his eyebrow, Stiles mouths wordlessly. “Whoa, wait. Don’ttell me that you played for UCLA. You went to UCLA.” Stiles isn’t asking anymore, because he’s so dumbfounded but it’s the only thing that makes sense, but Derek shakes his head.

“No, no, I didn’t go to UCLA.” Derek’s pulling at the bottom hemming of the striped shirt now, looking grumpy and much much younger, smaller. “I went to NYU,” he tells Stiles, and Stiles accepts it without thinking about it, but then everything just sinks in. He freezes, and then narrows his eyes. “You bought a UCLA shirt.”

“Yeah.” Derek coughs a little.  

“But you didn’t go to UCLA. And I doubt you were a fan of the Bruins.”

Derek shrugs, and he kind of looks like he’s about to scowl and retract like the rubber band he is, and, like,  _no,_  so Stiles takes hold of the gaudy and awful colored fabric of the t-shirt, and pulls Derek close without thinking of the consequences.

When he does, though, and Derek looks shell-shocked, Stiles kind of regrets his whole life. But he believes in throwing yourself fully into the water to learn how to swim, so he still keeps open palms against the planes of Derek’s chest. There’s the lump again that he’d felt in the car so many months ago, and he successfully swallows it down. “I don’t know when I started liking you so much, but it’s happened, and voilla. You piss me off a lot, like, all of time, and you never agree with anything anyone tells you because you’re stubborn as fuck and that’s  _so_  annoying. You ignore your feelings when I like to say things, and we’ve really got to work that out, because not talking for months on end drove me nuts. And the fact that I still like you is the icing on the cake and that pisses me off the most. But, most importantly, I like you and I really want to kiss your dumb face, so tell me something.” The speech was a lot more impressive-sounding before it had actually come out, and Stiles sighs, already anticipating the—

“Okay.” Derek says it, and Stiles is already nodding because he’d been expecting a  _no_. It feels like he gets whiplash turning his head to look at Derek’s face again.  

_“Okay?”_

“Yeah,” Derek’s breath is running hot over his mouth and his lips are glistening enough to where it’s distracting Stiles’s zero-focus mind. “That was my something.”

Stiles laughs. “So I’m going to do that,” he says, just to be sure, and Derek lets out a huff of frustration.

“Stiles quit talking.”

“I can do that, I’m so up for that—  _mmf_ ,” and then kissing Derek is totally a thing, a thing that’s happening. Stiles is worried that his head is spinning out of control and is causing hallucinations of warm, soft lips harshly demanding the response of his own. He’s helpless to resisting, (not that he ever would) because even Derek’s palms running up the expanse of Stiles’s lower back are eliciting a response from him.

His own thin t-shirt is bunching up on his back, baring his skin to the wall and sending a chill up his lower back.

“I can’t believe I get to make jokes about swinging both ways now.” Stiles laughs loudly when Derek sighs and rests his forehead on Stiles’s shoulder in exasperation.

“I should have known the jokes were coming.”

“It’s okay. As long as you can catch what I’m pitching.” Stiles sniggers, and Derek pinches him.

“Stop.”

“Whatever you say.”


End file.
